


Naughts and Crosses

by lazy_universes



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, PTSD, Political talk, Swearing, Torture, dictatorship!AU, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:45:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9632165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_universes/pseuds/lazy_universes
Summary: In the future, the democracy is over. Commander Odin has ruled for over forty years with an iron grip, and no one has dared to challenge his power. But when his son Loki returns from the dead and joins the resistence, will his strength be enough to silence the voice of the people?(Or: How ideas are far more dangerous than guns. Ever tried to shoot an ideal?)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I first posted this story five years ago. I liked it, but always felt there was something missing, so I put it aside and waited for inspiration to hit. 
> 
> Since that I have survived two abusive relationships, became a lawyer, found a steady job and a place within the academic community. Oddly enough, I never stopped being interested in authoritarian governments - I worked at truth comissions, I researched governments, I wrote several papers about it and even managed to get a few published. Looking back, maybe it was foreshadowing. Maybe what I was lacking was this sort of roughness only the world can give you, this unrelenting dread. It's all fun and games when a future like this is not a possibility, but I've studied too much to think we're not headed that way. Unsurprisingly, I found myself interested in rewriting this. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy the ride.

_"WAR IS PEACE_

_FREEDOM IS SLAVERY_

_IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”_

-   **George Orwell, 1984**

 

_“Before, the world was a mess._

_There were many, many countries battling for power. Within a system called capitalism, they used all kinds of methods to win the upper hand.  Money was the ultimate goal - whoever had more money had more power._

_Then, in 2018, everything changed._

_The unrelenting competition between countries led the world into a war of massive proportions, one that ruined every life, every family, every nation. Hunger, misery and suffering were abound. However, in the middle of this disastrous scenario, a light appeared to all of us – Our first ruler, Savior and Protector, Buri._

_On the year of 2018, commander Buri led his troops against the Union of the Northern Republics and on a great battle obliterated their might, pushing them  away from our land, restoring order._

_Buri was the best governor the fallen America could have hoped for. He ruled from 2019 until his death in 2018, bringing us unity, uniformity, happiness, and the certainty that we would know peace. In return, he asked only for our compliance, a very low price to pay._

_To ensure that our country would be totally new, freed from all which binded our happiness, Buri was kind enough to dedicate his life to make America reborn, and he succeeded. Three hundred years later, we still stand, strong as ever, as a warm light for all mankind – an example of civilization and recovery from dark, immoral times._

_We now celebrate the Naming Day of Buri’s direct descendent, our beloved leader, Odin III. We thank him for his very existence, and above all, we thank him for being full of compassion and wisdom to lead us through the right path._

_May glory and honor bow before him through the rest of his life.”_

(Excerpt from a government-issued leaflet distributed in public schools - 22 of April, 2316.)

 

 

\-- 

 

 

When Amora woke up that morning, there was an odd feeling pooling in her stomach.

Since starting her day feeling a bit odd wasn’t unusual, she promptly ignored it and got ready for work, much like every other day. Her ration of milk was over, and it was too early to go to the nearest black market warehouse and buy some, so she had orange juice and an apple instead. Everyone knew eating apples in the made you hungry, however, and she had to eat the last piece of the real chocolate bar she was keeping for a special occasion.

As per usual, she was grumpy and didn’t say hello to her neighbors while  climbing down five floors of staircases - the elevator hadn’t been working  for a while, but no one in the building had time or money to spare when they had their own children to feed.

When she finally reached the streets, although the flush of cold and fresh air - or as fresh as it got anyway - usually wiped away any strange thoughts, the odder-than-usual feeling still lingered in her guts. She shrugged it off and walked through the narrow alleys of Northern New York, avoiding all children and beggars and junkies, as she had no patience for any of them.

Like every day, after she’d walked a fair distance through the slums and reached the Central Avenue Boulevard, cutting through what once was Central Park and going all the way down the Government Palace, she almost lost the monorail, and got into the wagon three seconds before the doors closed. The odd feeling was still in her guts and she chewed on her thumb through the entire ride, until the Monorail stopped in front of the Futurepharm Tower.

Futurepharm Tower was where she worked as a secretary. The building prepared for Commander Odin’s Naming Day next week, every inch scrubbed and polished until she could see her face reflected everywhere. For the next twelve hours she scheduled meetings, picked up holograms, and even helped Dr. Hansen choose a nail polish color, yet the odd feeling still persisted and, if she was to be honest with herself, she was getting a bit worried.

While she took the monorail back home, lots of possibilities ran through her head. Maybe the Void found out about all the black market stuff on her house and they were coming for her. Absent-mindedly, she ran her fingertips over the small numbers burned on her hip and shivered. Maybe it was just a snow storm coming and she would have to buy new blankets and socks and coats, even though there wasn't much money left. She was considering the cold clothes that she already had when the monorail reached her stop.

Like any other day, she walked home, making her way through children (how she loathed children, damn), and narrow alleys. Her apartment was a one-room thing, the building too old to still be somehow respectable, but she kept it carefully tidy and it was home all the same. As soon as she crossed her front door, as usual, she put a song in the old music player and had dinner in front of the outdated television. There was a movie about Commander Buri’s life showing but she didn’t pay any attention to it, because she knew that story from beginning to end - all the lines and plot twists.  They would play it every week at school when she was a child until she knew every word and pause for breath.

When it was about midnight, she turned off the television, put the dirty plate in the sink, brushed her teeth, put on her pajamas, and went to bed, but even in the comfort of her nice, cozy blanket and fluffy pillow – courtesy of the black market – she was still feeling odd, stomach not wanting to keep the food in.

But Amora was a grown up woman, and did what every sane, mature, adult woman would do in her place – she pushed those thoughts somewhere she couldn’t think about them and tried to get some sleep.

 

 --

 

It was three in the morning when she woke up, entirely sure someone was knocking on her door.

Rain was pouring, tapping restlessly against the window frame, and she immediately dismissed it – it was just the rain, she thought to herself. But as she snuggled back into her bed, knowing that she would have to be up in three hours, the sound returned, this time much more distinctive.  A cold shiver trailed down her spine and she was torn between being pissed at the person knocking three in the morning and being very afraid of whomever was doing it. Still unsure, she rose from her bed and walked slowly towards the entrance, barefoot and barely dressed.

“Who is it?”

Pressing her ear against the crumbling wood, she could hear a ragged breath, a cough or two and feel the pressure of a body against the frame.

“ _Amora…_ ”

No. It  _couldn’t_  be.

She opened the door as fast as she could and it was too fast for the person leaning on the other side - He fell straight to the floor. 

Amora wasn’t sure, but if she had to bet, she’d say that she opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish about fifty times before coming to her senses and dragging the man inside, kicking the door shut. Then she knelt by his side, slowly, as if he were a trick or a dream that could vanish at any second, and carefully placed her fingertips on his cheeks, trailing a path down to his throat, feeling the heightened heart rate and his labored breath. He was gaping and struggling and dozing in and out of consciousness, but still managed to wrap his fingers around her wrist, squeezing and offering a small, pained smile. There was so much blood, she hated it - she loathed the sight of blood ever since she was a little girl - and he seemed exhausted, like he’d walked miles and miles after clawing his way out of hell and not eaten once in the meantime.

“ _Loki?_ ”

His smile got a little more bright and his eyes opened for a little bit, just enough to let her see how green they were, before he passed out, laying in the middle of the hallway.

 

 --

  

Three in the morning became four. Four in the morning became five. Five in the morning became six, when she should be, technically, waking up, but she was still sitting in the same spot since Loki – _Loki –_ knocked on her door and passed out in her hallway. Odds were that he was dead, but she was just too shocked to do anything but sit and hug her knees.

The last time she saw Loki was right here, in this very hallway, four or five years before – she had just moved in and was unpacking, the little flat becoming something like home, when he rang the doorbell, which still worked at the time, as neat and impeccable as always - slick black hair combed back and a flawless gray suit perfectly tailored to his lean frame, green eyes softening at the sight of her bald head.

 _“There’s this awkward little tree I’ve found in the gardens once, you know,"_  he’d said, absently, " _it wasn’t supposed to be there, something about the garden’s design, but I ended up growing quite fond of it_. _Father wanted it gone, but I asked him not to. He said he could keep it as long as I was the sole responsible for its care. As it turns out, it was actually a fruit tree.”_

He took her wrist and placed a bag full of blackberries in her hand and, although she was quite grateful since she had spent all of her money buying sheets from the black market and had nothing left for food, she eyed him like he was insane.  He smirked.

 _“A blackberry tree, would you imagine? It's actually quite interesting - in some languages, the word for blackberry is_  Amora _. The tree almost died this winter, but it survived, and personally, I think it only made the fruits sweeter.”_  He smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder.  _“Have a nice day, Amora.”_

Then he turned on his back, followed by his two security guards, and left, leaving her with her mouth hanging open and a bag full of fruits in her hand.

The next day, she received a great sum of money in her bank account and a call from Futurepharm saying that they would be glad to offer her a job.

What Amora didn’t understand was why he would care so much about her, since she was only another woman his brother Thor fucked regularly. His booty call. Maybe he felt guilty because she was arrested by the Void, but they had claimed that she had had relationships with subversive people (like her brother Skurge), and they wanted information. If they tortured her, shaved her head, and burned numbers on her skin, Loki had nothing to do with it.

But she never really had a chance to ask why, first because he never showed up again (though there was money on her bank account every month), and second because, a year later, he was killed by extremists in a terrorist attack.

Here’s the thing – Loki was supposed to be very, very dead. Like six feet under, dead and buried. He shouldn’t – _couldn’t_  – be here, because dead people can’t ask for help and sure as hell can’t rise from the grave and knock on doors.

Carefully, she put a hand on his face –  _shit_ , it was too cold – and pushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead. That seemed to wake him up, since he opened up his eyes just a little bit and looked at her.

“Sorry I…” He gasped and inhaled deeply, like there was something stuck in his lungs that made it difficult to breathe. “Couldn’t find any…  Blackberries this time.”

She eyed him, still not believing that it was really him, almost dying – _again_ – on her floor.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

He smirked and took another deep, rattling breath.

“I’m not.”

For a brief second she considered leaving him to it. She couldn’t take care of him, couldn’t have that responsibility on her shoulders, she didn’t want to be dragged into that mess again, but…

But Loki had been the nicest person to her during her time as Thor’s lover. He would say hi and squeeze her shoulders when she looked sad. And he also gave her money when she’d needed it, fresh out of jail and with a shattered sense of identity. Loki had been good to her and she never let her debts go unpaid.

So if she searched for his hand and held it tight, bringing it closer to her heart and trying to warm it in a useless effort, it was only because she had a great debt to him, not because she felt empathy. Empathy was dangerous.

 “You’re actually alive.”

He grinned, lips stretched and teeth hidden.

“Barely.”

“Barely is enough,” she said, and squeezed his hand a little bit harder.

 

 -- 

 

Amora called her boss and said she had food poisoning. Since that was a common enough occurrence for someone who lived in the slums, and she did actually look like hell, bad enough for it to be visible through the hologram, Dr. Hansen gave her the week off. One problem taken care of - the other was still nearly dead on her bed. Were he anyone else, she would’ve given him some nanogenes she stole from Futurepharm (the really good ones, not that crap they gave to people in the slums) and waited for it to solve whatever the issue was.

Nanogenes had been the cutting edge in health care a century before - now they were just commonplace. Small robots engineered to act as an improved version of white cells, they could be applied topically, ingested or, if they were more advanced, injected into the bloodstream. The very rich had them implanted since they were born, which made their immune system about six or seven times stronger than the average human’s. The only problem was that they worked a lot like blood types. You can’t give type B blood to someone whose blood type is A, and the same applies to nanogenes - If there are any long-usage nanogenes in your circulatory system, whatever happens to you, they’ll fix it. However, if you receive a dose of another nanogene, be it more advanced or outdated, your blood will coagulate and you'll certainly be dead in less than a dozen seconds.

The process of getting them into the bloodstream was expensive and too delicate. Poor people only used nanogene-based medicines or localized nanogene treatment, and only the crappy ones that the government handed in hospitals. Loki was the youngest son of the Commander – of  _course_  he would have nanogenes in his body. What she could do was give him water, food and hope that whatever was done to him didn’t affect the workings of the nanomachines or worse, made them turn into parasites. The last thing she needed was crazy pieces of metal eating away his platelets and making him a hemophilic.

She would have to wait and pray to whatever superior entity was watching that Loki could handle that. In the meantime, she would make sure he was alive, though he didn’t seem to be getting conscious anytime soon.

She had no other choice but to wait. And wait. And wait a little bit more.

When she was ready to give up, he woke up for good.

 

 --

 

One of the things that Loki was most scared of was to be blind.

Despite common belief, he could survive without his mouth. A liar wasn’t made only by words – his body has to live the lie and act it out perfectly, be an impeccable performer of himself. A liar must trick his own flesh and force it to tell the truth, but, above all that, he must see what the other person needs to hear and lie accordingly.

For that, he needed his eyes. Without them a liar was nothing.

So when he regained consciousness for the first time in days and saw only darkness, he panicked, airways too tight and narrow to suck in the amount of air he needed. It felt like drowning, and it was _so dark_ , panic started building in his chest- 

“What the fuck are you doing, Loki?” Someone hissed by his side.

Hands gripped his arms and shook his body – he opened his eyes, suddenly, realizing that the darkness only existed because of his closed eyelids and finally, at last, he could see the light coming out of the window. He tried to get up, but his legs were too week and got tangled on the sheets, throwing him off balance. He fell face-first on the floor.

“Goddamn it, could you be any fucking louder? I swear to-”

He turned around and his eyes were too slow to focus at the person kneeled at his side, holding his shoulders, but then he could see – long, blonde hair, green eyes with a very pissed off expression turning the once delicate features into a mask of stone.

Oh. Amora.

He was suddenly very confused. If his memory hadn’t failed him (which is a possibility, his memory wasn't as great as it used to be), the last thing he remembered was crossing a bridge, but then rain had started to pour down and it was so dark…

She seemed to notice his bewilderment, because she sighed and let go of his arms.

“I honestly hope that you’re conscious this time – Repeating this all over again every time you wake up is pissing the everliving shit out of me. You showed up in my apartment. I put you to bed and have been feeding you and taking you to the bathroom regularly, and having no sleep whatsoever in the meantime. Rings any bells?”

It sort of did – wandering around the slums under the heavy rain and feeling a spark of hope when he saw her building, but it was all blurred and messy inside his head. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers and tried to look to the window again.

“…Light” He tried to say, but the words seemed heavy on his tongue – coughing, he tried again. “I... was se-searching for the light”.

“There’s light everywhere, it’s noon.” Amora replied, getting up from the floor. “But you’re conscious this time. For real.”

“I’ve been sleeping?” He slurred each word, still getting used to use his mouth after so much time. He was getting annoyed – his eloquence seemed to have gone traveling, leaving him with the proficiency of a 4-year-old child.

“Five days, give or take a few hours. Take it easy”.

He conceded, shrugging, and she nodded, wiping off the dust from her clothes. She stared at him for a moment before leaning down and squeezing his shoulder lightly.

“Get back in bed, I’ll fix some breakfast. Then you can tell me what happened.” She opened her wardrobe and picked out a few clothes, then set them on the bed and went to help him get up.

“Put me closer to the window,” he muttered, feeling quite ashamed for relying on her help. She twisted her lips, glaring at him, and took him a few moments to understand what she wanted. “… Please.”

“Now we’re talking. I’ll grab a chair, wait a second.”

 He tried to get up while she was gone – the only result he got, however, was falling on his butt and making Amora cackle and choke with laughter when she saw the scene. She did help him get up and sit on the chair though, so he thought he could forgive that small fault, mostly because there was light, so much light, and he was relishing it like a small starved plant savors a sunny day. Even though the skies were clouded and there was a thin rain falling, he still felt- peaceful.

He’d spent so much time in the darkness that light seemed a gift – he could see colors and patterns and shadows and everything seemed so much better with light that he even dared to put his hand through the window and let the small raindrops wet his skin.

What Amora was seeing, though, was a man that looked very old and very young at the same time, and it was just so sad seeing someone who once held so much power to be so incredibly happy for something as simple as being close to the light – what kind of hell did he go through to come out like that?

“I’ll go get some food,” she said, putting on her coat.

“Fine,” He answered, and she squeezed his shoulder before going out.

 

\-- 

  

“I’m back!”

Loki jumped slightly on his seat, daring to take his eyes away from the window to look at Amora for one second. He barely acknowledged her leaving and he honestly couldn’t tell if she had been away for a few minutes or a few hours, so absorbed he was on the window. In a rare show of empathy, she gave him a small, kind smile, something unusual coming from her as far as he could remember, just when he turned around to see her leaning on the doorframe.

“Got food?”

 “Yeah. My bread and coffee ration ended two days ago. Let me tell you, no wonder people starve to death, how can they expect a family of five to be satisfied with this,” She shook her head, put all the bags on the floor and walked until she was side by side with him, pressing her hand to his shoulder, slightly, and removing it a moment later. She stared at the window with him for a moment before shrugging and sighing, turning around, picking the bags from the floor and making her way to the kitchen.“Enjoying the view?” she asked.

“Not much,” he said, staring at it through the big, ceiling-to-floor handmade window. From where he was, he had a privileged view of the slums and the Towers.

The slums were built over what was once the northern part of Manhattan Island. Ugly, poorly-made houses piled and stacked on top of each other invaded the once large streets, narrowing them until they were nothing but alleys, and the big buildings that once held power and prestige, though still standing, were aged and decrepit. Through time, their insides were taken over bit by bit by poor families with nowhere to go.

The buildings that once were the pride and joy of the nation were now nothing but homes to poor, working families with too many kids. There and there, he could see children playing and running on the alleys, seemingly happy, but their parents all had worn out expressions as they were heading out to work, probably in factories. Half of what was the most important city in the world was now a decrepit, hopeless place.

On the horizon, however, things were a lot different. That’s because the southern part of Manhattan was where the Towers were.

The Towers were where the rich and powerful made their humble abodes. The old remnants of what once was New York City were gone, gigantic towers built on top of it. Even the smallest one was twice the size of a large slum building. Although it was pretty easy to spot a commercial tower or two, they were more common in Los Angeles, Boston or Chicago - these right there were the new mansions by the beach, all hovering around the Palace. They didn’t have streets or anything of the sort – aerocars didn’t need streets – but there was, however, a sole avenue that begun in the slums and ended right in front of the Government Palace.

He missed and loathed this view so much he felt sick.

But there was something going on though, because it was too golden – even the slums were golden, and that was very unusual. From where he was, he could see people decorating their houses with golden flowers and painting huge runes on their doors, and one or two towers were testing fireworks and holograms.

“Amora,” He called, “is there something important going on?”

“What are you talking about?” She said, from somewhere around the kitchen.

“The streets, the houses, the towers, everything is decorated. What day is it?”

Light steps approached him, and then Amora’s short figure stood by his side, holding a dishcloth.

“Oh. That’s for Odin’s Naming Day. It’s tomorrow. Everyone is expecting this; it will be the last one before Thor takes over. Rumor says that we are all going to receive extra butter for this, but I say bullshit, we haven’t received extra butter for almost a year. Come, there’s food, let me help you get up.”

He put an arm around her shoulder and let himself be guided to the kitchen, and found the small table lined with a plaid cloth strangely amusing, so full of food like this. There was coffee, bread, a white cake, and something that looked like…

“Is this orange juice?” He asked, while she seated him on the chair closer to the jar and inspected it suspiciously.

“Are you seriously asking if I could get orange juice in the black market?” She shook her head, undoing her messy bun and letting the blonde locks fall graciously around her shoulders. “This is powered juice. Tastes awful compared to the actual one, but it does the trick.”

Loki shrugged, pouring himself a glass and taking a sip, only to make a face a moment after. Amora was right -, it was hideous. He drank it all anyways.

“Calm down. You look like you haven't had a full plate in ages. I mean, it's not like I do," she added, pensively, "But you look worse. And if you choke and die I wouldn't know where to hide your body.”

“You would.”

She smirked, eyes wide and glimmering with amusement.

“Of course.”  She served herself to a loaf of bread and coffee and dipped the bread inside of the mug, ignoring Loki’s disgusted expression at what she was doing. She brought her left knee closer, feet on the chair, and ate it all, biting and dipping it as she went. When she was almost done, she raised her eyes from her food. “So, feel like telling me?”

“Telling you what?”

“What happened? You’re supposed to be dead. Why do you look like you got taken by the Void?”

Loki’s hand froze midair, just when he was about to eat his loaf of bread. Something cold trailed down his spine, and at the same time, something warm flooded his eyes. His heart raced, and he didn’t feel like eating anymore.

“I think you have to go to work,” He replied, carefully putting the bread back on his plate and not daring to meet her eyes.

“Nu-uh. Called in sick. You’re not avoiding my questions now, son of the Commander.”

If he didn’t know Amora, he would think that she was mocking him.

But he knew Amora, so he knew she just didn’t have tact. She could be beautiful, smart, clever, but she wasn’t empathetic, and she always had a really hard time knowing when to draw the line between directness and rudeness.  So he swallowed up the lump on his throat and raised his eyes to meet hers.

“He’s not my father,” he said, carefully and slowly, choosing the words like they were potential bombs. “And yes, I was taken by the Void.”

“What have they done to you?”

“What do you  _think_?”

An awkward silence settled down between them, and the air seemed denser. Both were immersed in their memories – memories of darkness, pain, hopelessness. Amora wanted to scream. Loki wasn’t really sure that he wouldn’t just wake up to the darkness again.

“They said it was a terrorist attack,” She muttered, “what happened to you, I mean.  There was an official week of mourning and everything. Vali even made a speech.”

She could remember it perfectly, like a movie on her head – The announcement made by Commander Odin, voice full of grief, saying that extremists had killed his son, a coldblooded murder, and that the guilty were found and would be hanged the very next day.

There was so much black, she remembered, while people mourned for the Commander’s dead child (Even though many of them didn’t even like Loki in the first place). There was nonstop coverage on the news, and there was a minute of mandatory silence every day for a week, and the whole country stopped to see the coffin being carried by Odin, Thor, Heimdall, all those important men from the government, in a slow pace all the way down the Central Avenue Boulevard. It was all somehow beautiful, she recalled.

“He liked that,” Loki gave a small smile. “He always liked to talk.”

He looked at her, and his eyes were worn out, exhausted.

Before, Loki was the Commander’s younger son. He had a wife, Sigyn, and Amora could remember her long, blond hair, almost white, and bright silver-gray eyes.  He had two children - Vali, a black-haired boy with his mother’s eyes, and Narfi, a blond kid that could glare just like his father, even at such a young age. Loki was rich, had enough influence to make his opinions be heard and was wise enough to know the power of words. People didn’t like him, but he was feared and respected – he had ways to get what he wanted, even if most of the time, those ways were rather obscure.

Yet next to his brother Thor, he was no more than a shadow – a shadow that could still whisper betrayals and lies and change things with just a flick of his tongue. Loki was no saint. Loki was powerful in his own way.  Yet only the few that had seen him put his silvertongue into action, the few that had seen him manipulate his brother in order to get what he wanted, like she did all those years ago, had a complete grasp on how utterly dangerous the man was.

Maybe Odin also did. Maybe Odin thought that having Loki around was a liability– but what kind of bastard would do this to his own son?

Because the man sitting in front of her fooling around with his food wasn’t even a scrap of the man that Loki once was. In front of her was a man that had lost his family and had no reason to keep going, and only God knows how many times she’d seen that same story, over and over again.

“What happened to you, Loki?” She asked, very quietly.

He sighed.

 “I did something… bad, let’s say. I thought I would be safe because I was Odin’s son. I was wrong.”

He shivered and Amora held his hand.

 “One day the Void agents broke into my house. I told Sigyn and the kids to hide in the panic room while I tried to call someone in the palace, say that there was a rebellion, that I needed help…” He gulped. “Odin picked up, though. I asked for help. He said no. I was taken by the Void, and that’s it.”

Of course it wasn’t it, but some things are better left unsaid.

“They are all dead, I know,” Loki said, and when their eyes met she could see faint moisture on his. “But tell me. Did they… Did they suffer much? Do you think they did?”

She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell him that they had peaceful, calm deaths.

But you don’t lie to a liar. You don’t trick the trickster.

“I’m sorry, Loki. I’m so, so sorry.”

And God, how sorry she was.

 

\-- 

 

On the other side of the city, at the top of one of the tallest Towers in southern Manhattan, Tony Stark wasn’t having a great morning either - although his motives were far less tragic. He was having a row with one of his robots, and that never left him in a good mood.

“DUM-E, put that fire extinguisher down, this is just routine, I’m not on fire,” he said, waving his hands at the mechanical arm swinging the fire extinguisher around like it was a piece of cloth, not a 30-pound metal container. “No, I really mean it. If you douse me again and I’m not on fire, I’m donating you to the government. You’ll live a happy life as a party trick.”

The robot chirped sadly, but lowered the extinguisher anyways.

“Good boy,” Tony said, focusing again on the chest piece of his armor he was working on and absentmindedly tracing the numbers on his hipline while he thought. “JARVIS, scan it, give me what's wrong.”

There was a moment while blue lights hovered over the piece before the AI said anything.

“The cooling system appears to have problems, sir.”

“This shitty nanotech it’s too big to function properly,” Tony growled, “You know what? I’ll invent picotech. Mark this day, JARVIS, because I’ll totally invent picotech. It’ll sell like water.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Don’t you sass me, I can still dismantle you.”

“I’m sorry, but the probability that you’ll function properly without my help is 2.35%.”

Tony snorted, turning on his back and staring at his workshop, still thinking.

Messy wasn't a suitable adjective – It was proper chaos, machines and tablets all around the workbenches, pieces of armor, holograms, blueprints, all sorts of things scattered around the room. The only neat things around were the five suits of armor, perfectly lined up in the back of the room.

The government didn’t know about those, and if it was up to him, they would only know about it when it was time to blow up the Commander to smithereens. To them, Stark Industries would never ever produce another weapon. Yet Tony wasn’t the kind of guy that liked to play fair. If anything, the fact that he had a suit that could beat the shit out of a few hundreds of soldiers was basically their fault. If they hadn't sent the Void after him, he wouldn’t be forced to build a suit to escape, wouldn’t be an associate of S.H.I.E.L.D , and would never be playing the spy, playing for both sides and trying to win for only one. 

Some would say that S.H.I.E.L.D is just an urban legend, something to give hope to opposition. Anyone with a head still on their shoulders and Machiavelli on their shelf knew that hope is as important as fear, and having such rumors would give hope to those who seek to get rid of the Commander. The government itself used it as a way to arrest dozens of dissidents at once.

But Tony knew best. He knew that S.H.I.E.L.D existed and acted in the shadows, just waiting for the perfect moment and the perfect excuse, carefully led by Nick Fury, one of the best spies and probably the biggest two-faced asshole he’d ever met. After what the government did to him, Tony was more than willing to cooperate. Working alongside S.H.I.E.L.D gave him something to think about, something to work for, a greater good to look forward to.

But, as with any other organization, he had to put up with a few people that, in any other situation, he would gladly avoid.

One of them was coming into his lab and lowering his music at that exact moment.

“Hey, hey, hey, no, this is not how it works,” he said, pointing out to the ceiling. “You can’t just come here like you own the place and lower my music!”

The red-headed woman shrugged, putting two tablets on a nearby bench.

“Pepper did while she was your PA, and it seems like it’s the only way to get you to do stuff, anyways.”

Everybody knew that talking about Pepper was a no-go, but apparently Natasha Romanoff didn’t get the memo - she did it all the time. He swallowed down the lump on his throat with a cough.

“Just because she did it doesn’t mean that you can,” Tony said, hoarsely.

“But I’ll do anyways because, in case you don’t know, there’s still a company to run. I need you to look over the documents in those two, sign them, and have JARVIS give them to me again Friday morning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand at her. She had her intercom attached to her left ear and a suitcase held tightly by her right hand – off to a mission, then. “Fury’s got anything for me?”

“We’re following a lead, probably will capture an important person right after Naming Day.” She scanned the workshop with hawk-like eyes. “We aren’t so sure of where said person lives or what kinds of weapons they possess. Be alert, if we need you, we’ll contact you and you must be there within five minutes.”

Tony nodded.

“Go to the feast in the Palace today. Barton will cover you. Fury will stop by tomorrow to talk to you in person, but try to lay low.”

“Don’t I always?” He replied, snarky, because the last thing he wanted was to be bossed around by a secret spy, and despite the fact that it was “for the greater good” he could still be a sarcastic asshole to people he’d like to see miles away from him - right?

Of course, he couldn’t be too much of an asshole because he was too nice for that. Nothing to do with the fact that Natasha could probably kill him before he could say “sorry” if she felt like it, no.

“Quit it,” she replied. “We’ll keep an eye out for you. Barton should arrive at six. Good luck, Mr. Stark.”

“My ass,” He muttered, and if she heard, she ignored it completely, leaving the workshop like she owned the place and finally, finally, leaving him alone.

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, still staring at the door, thoughts on the feast held in Odin’s honor. He used to like going to those – there was a lot of food, lots of pretty women and nice drinks too, the ones that even the black market couldn’t sell as they were brought all the way down from New Europe as a gift from Queen Freyja. But after the Void, even though he would still receive invitations (Anthony Stark + 1, like they didn’t know Pepper was dead), the parties lost all their appeal. He wouldn’t go at all if S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t insist.

Outside the tower, the thin rain turned into a raging storm, and Tony rubbed his face.

“How many hours do I have before Barton arrives?” He asked to the ceiling.

“About eight, sir.”

“Plenty of time for you and me to solve this shit. Come on. Run some alternatives.”

 

\-- 

 

The slums smelled like rain, dirt, rotting garbage and sewage, but the red-haired woman paid no mind to it, standing on a small building’s roof. Her eyes scanned the windows she had been watching for hours, a predator watching its prey.

She had been observing those same windows relentlessly, trying to catch the smallest sign of life. Finally, she got it. Pressing a button on her glasses, she zoomed in until she could see everything going on inside the apartment – the blonde woman with a ponytail folding shirts and the black haired man sitting on the bed. She focused on the man’s face and pressed another button, taking several photos.

She waited for a minute, still staring at the man, capturing every single detail of its face, and then pressed her intercom.

“Director Fury, this is agent Romanoff. I’ve got him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fury didn’t answer for a second.

“Report back to base. We’ll get him after tomorrow.”

“Roger that,” she replied, and took another set of photos, just to be safe, before getting down the building to the street level. Once there, she looked up one last time, to the window where a member of the most hated family in the world was, lying on a bed like he could just ignore his past.

“Got you, Loki Odinson,” She muttered to herself, a cold smirk on her face. “I’ve got you.” Throwing another look to the window, she turned on her heels and walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> If you managed to reach this part then you'll have realized there's a FUCKTON OF PLOT!! I'm sorry, I can't stop behemoth fics from coming out from my fingers. Many many thanks to Buttons15 for being lovely and holding my hand through my ramblings and overthinking. Love ya silly.


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